Prosodic Patterns of Refusals: Differences Between English Native, Non-native, and Bilingual Speakers

Abstract

Recognizing the pragmatic nature of prosody, research on speech act production has developed over time with much attention given to yes/no and wh-questions. Prosodic patterns of refusals, however, have received less attention when compared to other speech acts although their appropriate production is critical in conveying politeness. Furthermore, comparisons of speech act production have often been between English native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs). The current work responds to these gaps through a comparison of prosodic patterns of refusals across three groups: English NSs (n = 17), NNSs (n = 10), and bilinguals (BLs) (n = 7). High- and low- imposition refusals were recorded from spoken discourse completion tasks. Prosodic analyses (temporal fluency, prominence, and intonation) were performed across the speaker groups. In low-imposition refusals, NNSs had more pause time than NS and BLs, and they also had a slower articulation rate than BLs. BLs used fewer rising tones than both NSs and NNSs. In high-imposition refusals, NNSs used more prominence than NSs, while BLs used fewer falling tones than NNSs. While these findings concur with current research on differences between NSs and NNSs, they add new subtleties on how BLs use prosody when compared with these groups